The Way We Live Now: 12-17-00; To Loaf or Not to Loaf

Neither Al Gore nor George Bush ever actually raised the question during the campaign. But once you get past all the stuff about lockboxes and bariffs and terriers, this has been the subtext of the contest. The election, as we were reminded, was less about issues than about personal style, and like dogs and their owners, nations often resemble their leaders. So what leadership style were we prepared to claim as our own: that of the energizer veep or of the man who raised coasting to a form of personal expression? As the legal wrangling stretches into untold excesses of overtime, the election comes down to a referendum on the coasting question. Whatever happens between now and Inauguration Day, that giant snoring sound you hear is the first susurrance of an electorate eager to take five.

For eight years, Bill Clinton was a natural to lead a nation swept in workaholic frenzy -- a huffing, puffing mass of cholesterol and ambition, leading the country as if it were the world's biggest aerobics class. He detained staff members and reporters in marathon strategy sessions. His public speeches set endurance records. The bags under his eyes could carry groceries. The populace responded in kind, working longer hours and making kids do more homework. By 1998, the average American family worked 15 more weeks a year than it did in 1969.

The brainy young wonks on Clinton's staff were models for the age, creating the midnight-oil-burning, pizza-ordering paradigm for the dot-com crowd that followed. (Clinton's anthem, ''Don't Stop,'' called for more sustained effort than the party's previous, sloth-friendly ''Happy Days Are Here Again.'') Television shows about families virtually disappeared; shows about workers -- E.R.,'' ''The Practice,'' ''Ally McBeal,'' ''The West Wing'' -- multiplied like billable hours.

In a period that gave us Viagra, an Ecstasy boom, progress against H.I.V. and a Barry White boxed set -- could there be any more favorable conditions for widespread whoopee? -- the nation seemed more interested in being handcuffed to the office than to the cute officemates. Even the era's defining sex scandal was all aggressive acquisition and legal grind, no leisurely afterglow -- something to keep Clinton busy when the spoil sports shut the government down.

But eight years was enough, already. A big part of the work force that entered the Clinton years afraid of never getting on the economic treadmill now dreams of getting off. People entering the job market now say they would rather have more time than more money. Even kids are burned out. A recent Harvard admissions paper described applicants as ''dazed survivors of some bewildering lifelong boot camp.'' The Piscataway, N.J., school board declared a moratorium on excessive homework.

Yet here was Al Gore, earnestly promising to continue the legacy of those workaholic Clinton years. During the campaign, he repeated the mantra that the administration had created 19 million new jobs, as if this were not the equivalent of a father boasting that he had created that many new household chores. Nineteen million new jobs? Who had time or energy? If Gore prevails, he may find himself a wired alpha among tired betas.

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George W. Bush, by contrast, found himself on the other side of the coasting question. Not for him the vanity of toiling late at night under fluorescents, hoping to get a star for attendance. As governor of Texas, he typically knocked off at 5 p.m., and still managed to schedule a couple hours during the day to exercise, play video games, get a massage or nap. He clipped the time he spent reviewing each scheduled execution from half an hour to 15 minutes. If briefings droned too long, his adviser, Karl Rove, told The Los Angeles Times, Bush would point to his computer's solitaire program. So when he began the arduous task of his transition before the wrangling in Florida had gotten under way, it was a distressing turn of events. If this man stands for anything, surely it is for working only as hard as he has to.

The national economy is already starting to kick back. Investors have soured on dot-coms, with their tireless, nonhierarchic team members who think success means working 130-hour weeks, crashing on the office couch, putting off adulthood till their options are vested. Instead, the market has returned to its previous bias for the old blue chips, where success means never having to say you're too busy for golf or a long martini lunch. That's what hierarchies are for.

All movements have their unsung heroes, and the conquest of coast is no exception. Of note are Miami-Dade County's vote counters, who decided that they didn't care to spend Thanksgiving poring over disputed chad. But the real avatars of the new loafing were those Florida voters who could not muster the effort to poke all the way through the ballot, leaving a lazy dimple as a measure of their intentions. Theirs was not a strong will expressed ambiguously, I like to think, but a sluggish will articulated with elan. The people have spoken, and they are pooped.

And the big winner? However the electoral haggling comes out, I'm betting on Gore's old boss. After eight years of leading the age of overwork, Bill Clinton again finds himself on the golden edge of the curve: out of work, empty of nest, with a sweet pension and enough gimme caps to last a lifetime. He is not the type to stay home baking cookies. But if the nation is indeed entering a recumbent revolution, what better role model than a man who walked away from the choicest job in the free world? He is once again set to lead the nation. This time in a nap.

John Leland is a reporter in the Style department of The New York Times.